A New System of Domestic Cookery
Title page of 1813 edition
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| Author | Mrs Rundell |
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| Country | England |
| Subject | English cooking |
| Genre | Cookery |
| Publisher | John Murray |
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Publication date
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1806 |
A New System of Domestic Cookery, first published in 1806 by Maria Eliza Rundell (1745 – 16 December 1828), was the most popular English cookbook of the first half of the nineteenth century; it is often referred to simply as "Mrs Rundell", but its full title is A New System of Domestic Cookery: Formed Upon Principles of Economy; and Adapted to the Use of Private Families.
Mrs Rundell has been called "the original domestic goddess" and her book "a publishing sensation" and "the most famous cookery book of its time". It ran to over 67 editions; the 1865 edition had grown to 644 pages, and earned two thousand guineas.
The first edition of 1806 was a short collection of Mrs Rundell's recipes published by John Murray. It went through dozens of editions, both legitimate and pirated, in both Britain and the United States, where the first edition was published in 1807. The frontispiece typically credited the authorship to "A Lady". Later editions continued for some forty years after Mrs Rundell's death. The author Emma Roberts (c. 1794–1840) edited the 64th edition, adding some recipes of her own.
Sales of A New System of Domestic Cookery helped to found the John Murray publishing empire. Sales in Britain were over 245,000; worldwide, over 500,000; the book stayed in print until the 1880s. When Rundell and Murray fell out, she approached a rival publisher, Longman's, leading to a legal battle.
The 1865 edition is divided into 35 chapters over 644 pages. It begins with a 2-page preface. The table of contents lists each recipe under its chapter heading. There is a set of tables of weights, measures, wages and taxes before the main text. There is a full index at the end.
In contrast to the relative disorder of English eighteenth century cookery books such as Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife (1727) or Elizabeth Raffald's The Experienced English Housekeeper (1769), Mrs Rundell's text is strictly ordered and neatly subdivided. Where those books consist almost wholly of recipes, Mrs Rundell begins by explaining techniques of economy ("A minute account of the annual income and the times of payment should be kept in writing"), how to carve, how to stew, how to season, to "Look clean, be careful and nice in work, so that those who have to eat might look on", how to choose and use steam-kettles and the bain-marie, the meanings of foreign terms like pot-au-feu ("truly the foundation of all good cookery"), all the joints of meat, the "basis of all well-made soups", so it is page 65 before actual recipes begin.
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